Caribou's Dan Snaith Using Daphni Side-Project to Fight 'EDM Barfsplosion'

Posted on Jul 24th 2012 12:50PM by Jason MacNeil
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Merge

Caribou main man Dan Snaith will be releasing a dancefloor-centric album from his Daphni side project entitled Jiaolong in mid-October.

The album will come out on Oct. 16 through Merge in North America and his own label in the UK.

The nine-track album includes the opening number "Yes, I Know," "Light," "Springs" and "Long. A new video for the song "Ye Ye" directed by Jane Eastlight was also released this morning on YouTube.

Snaith said in a press release that he fell back in love with "moments in small, dark clubs when a DJ puts on a piece of music that not only can you not identify but that until you heard it, you could not have conceived of it existing.

"In contrast to live concerts where bands predictably string together the songs from their most recent albums, DJs have the potential to blindside you, be genuinely surprising. As a music producer, the parameters of dance music seem wider. The rhythmic underpinnings are liberating rather than constraining, allowing the rest of the elements to coalesce from a broad palette."

Snaith -- who under the Caribou moniker won the 2008 Polaris Music Prize for his Andorra album -- also said he was surprised by the amount of "transcendent moments" he's had in clubs in recent years both performing and watching others perform.

"Against my expectations, there's some magic in it still," he said. "The cliches about the collective consciousness of clubs still seems to hold water in some special cases.

"Set against the backdrop of bland and functional dance music and the mind-numbing predictability of the EDM barfsplosion currently gripping the corporate ravesters, there is a small world where dance music lives up to its potential to liberate, surprise, and innovate. It's there that I hope Daphni has a place."

Snaith has spent part of the summer supporting Radiohead on their North American and European tours but still found time according to Caribou's Twitter account to master the Daphni album.

"JIAOLONG004 mastering this week -- from an as yet undisclosed artist new to Jiaolong," he tweeted on July 8. "two absolute killers. get ready."

Snaith also tweeted this morning that Caribou will play two headlining shows around the Radiohead tour with a Sept. 21 gig in Milano and another in Vienna on Sept. 27.

UPDATE: Merge/Daphni operatives have been sending out an updated version of the press release without Dan Snaith's "barfsplosion" quote, but it does exist. And it's our new favorite word.

Watch Daphni's "Ye Ye" Video